Burden of care among caregivers of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Introduction: Caregivers of patients with severe psychiatric illnesses suffer significant impairment in their socio-occupational, interpersonal as well as emotional functioning, amounting to enormous burden. Aim: To compare the burden of care among the caregivers of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder. Methodology: It was a cross-sectional study, conducted at a tertiary care hospital, and involved 30 caregivers each of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Burden Assessment Schedule (BAS) was used for assessing the burden experienced by the caregivers, along with a specially designed proforma was used to gather socio-demographic information about the patients and their caregivers. Result: Most subjects were males, were spouses in case of bipolar affective disorder patient (43.30%) and parents (46.70%) among schizophrenia patients. In terms of socio-demographic profile, no significant difference was found between the groups.17 (12 of schizophrenia and 5 of bipolar group) of the total 60 subjects were found to experience severe burden of care. Total burden score was 64.4 ± 13.88 for the subjects of bipolar disorder group and 75.03 ± 13.7 among the subjects of schizophrenia groupand, the difference was statistically significant. Conclusion: Severe burden of care worsens the quality of life and poses substantial subsyndromal psychiatric morbidity among the caregivers of patients with chronic psychiatric morbidities. Support programme should be planned to help the caregivers, acknowledging the uniqueness of each caregiving situation, monitoring the individual care process and taking into consideration the phase in the caregiving process